A Defining Moment

On June 6, 1944, in France, the Allied armies invaded. It was the largest, and to this day, the largest armed invasion of any sort mounted in world history. More armies, more men took part in what is the Normandy invasion of France, known as D-Day to this day. The opening hours of that engagement were a disaster, especially on Omaha Beach, the one section of the beach that had the largest invasion forces massed. And it was a very large stretch, more than a mile, probably, of open sand beach, about 200 yards to cover and the shadow of cliffs. But the Germans had arranged their guns to where an invading force would be pinned down, and indeed, that's what happened with the first troops that waited ashore that morning. The invasion of Europe, for a very short period of time, literally hung in the balance and the fate of the war. Those of you that have seen the movie Saving Private Ryan, in the opening 20 or 25 minutes of that movie, you get a picture of what those moments were like in the opening hours of the morning on Omaha Beach, in that invasion. It was a bloodbath. Over 2,500 men lost their lives that morning. My father was on that invasion at that time on the beach, and was involved in it, being on the first wave. There came a moment when it all could have unraveled, and the invasion called off, because thousands of troops were actually literally pinned down on the beach, and they couldn't advance, they couldn't move. And had that happened, a great disaster would have occurred, because it would have essentially nixed the invasion, and what could have been mounted again later on would almost have been virtual impossibility. The morale would have been horrible. And yet, there was a critical moment about 11 or 12 o'clock that day where things began to change. Let me read to you a few lines from a book called The Longest Day, written back in the early 1960s by a man named Cornelius Ryan, who caught this moment.

He said, from the sea, the beach presented an incredible picture of waste and destruction. The situation was so critical that at noon, General Omar Bradley aboard the Augusta began to contemplate the possible evacuation of his troops, and the diversion of follow-up forces to Utah. Utah Beach was another beach, and the British beaches. But even as Bradley wrestled with the problem, the men in the chaos were moving.

Along a section of Omaha Beach, a crusty 51-year-old general named Norman Cota strode up and down in the hail of fire, waving a .45 pistol and yelling at the men to get off the beach. Along the shingle, which was an outcropping of rock about 200 yards up from the shore from the line of the water, along the shingle behind the seawall, and in the coarse beach grass at the base of the bluffs, men crouched shoulder to shoulder, peering at the general, unwilling to believe that a man could stand upright and live. Lead the way, Rangers, Cota shouted, and men began to rise to their feet.

At another point, Colonel Charles Canem moved through the dead and dying and the shocked, waving groups of men forward. They're murdering us here, he said. Let's move inland and get murdered. Men got up and headed toward the bluffs.

At another point, Commanding Officer Colonel George Taylor yelled, Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are going to die. Now let's get the blank out of here. Everywhere, intrepid leaders, privates and generals alike were showing the way, getting men off the beach. Once started, the troops did not stop again.

General Bradley didn't have to call off the invasion. The war went on, and Nazi Germany was defeated in less than a year. That moment, that critical period, about midday on Omaha Beach, was a defining moment in the invasion, in fact, in all of World War II. It can be said, arguably, but I think with a certain amount of truth, that from that moment, every other event in the war flowed. From that moment on the beach. From that moment, literally, Adolf Hitler was the first one to be killed. He hadn't surrendered, but he would be. In a matter of months, there would be other battles. There was the great Battle of the Bulge a few months later in December. One last push. But eventually, Nazi Germany was defeated. This moment on the beach serves as, I think, a very important lesson for the people of the world.

This moment on the beach serves as, I think, a very important lesson I'd like to talk about this morning. There are moments in our life when we come to a decision, and we have to make a decision. And we will decide. And what we decide at certain moments in our life sets the rest of the course of our life.

Sets the rest of the course of our life in certain decisions that we make. They may be long-term, maybe for a decade, maybe for the rest of our lifetime. Maybe even certain decisions we make will impact our eternity, our eternal life. But at certain points in life, I've come to realize, we arrive at what we can call a defining moment in life.

It's one where you come to know that what you decide on that action, at that moment, will set your course for a long time to come.

It's a hard decision, it may be.

Once that decision is made, it will lead naturally to all other decisions that we will make in life. It will be a decision from which there is no turning back. It will be a defining moment, a defining decision in our life. Turn, if you will, over to Luke 9.

Luke 9.

Begin reading in verse 57.

Now it happened, as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to him, Lord, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

Then he said to another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, let me go first and bury my father. Jesus said, Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.

And another also said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell, who are at my house. And Jesus said to him, verse 62, No one having put his hand to the plow, and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. Christ is defining, in a sense, a defining moment when we put our hand to the plow, and we determine we will not look back.

We all come to moments when we must decide whether we're going to push forward and live or remain where we are and begin a slow, decades-long process of withering and death. Some people die years before they take their last breath.

By decisions that they make, by their heart being taken out of them, by their enthusiasm for life, we must never miss the moment of opportunity. These are what I call life's defining moments. There's a scene from one of my favorite movies, the Shawshank Redemption. Two men are in prison. One knows that he's there legally and should be. The other knows that he was framed and is there as a result of a crime that he did not commit. He's the character played by Tim Robbins in that movie. Morgan Freeman plays the prisoner that knows that he should be there. And they're talking one day in the prison yard about life, about getting out, and the Robbins character has the desire to get out.

And to keep living. And the other is a memorable line, the best one from the movie. He says, well, you either get busy living or you get busy dying. Get busy living or get busy dying.

And as the movie goes on from that moment, he had defined that he was going to get out of there, and he did. I don't think we always recognize these moments at the time, necessarily, as what they are. Sometimes it may take a few years, and we look back and we understand a little bit better. I have come to, in my thinking about this sermon, and defined a moment or two in my life that we're defining moments. But it's important that we understand that life will present such moments, and that that is a key to success, spiritual success, ultimately.

We're here at the Passover period, and now the Days of Unleavened Bread. And this period really tells us of a very significant moment of definition. Two nights ago, we observed the death of Jesus Christ, the death and suffering of our Savior. That was a defining moment for all of mankind. We're here on the first day of Unleavened Bread. For seven days, we will be observing these days, which picture to us putting sin out. But beyond that, and most importantly, they picture to us the resurrected Jesus Christ and His life in us as we eat the Unleavened Bread of sincerity and truth.

This is what these days are important about and what they tell us. They tell us Christ's power in us and His life within us. And that's what's crucial. That's what is so important about the Days of Unleavened Bread. Not the crumbs, not the baking soda. I know some of you tried to crank up your leaf blowers and get the crumbs out. Better luck next year for some of you. But it does work. It does work. Make sure it's all ready to go next year.

But like I said, it takes less than a minute. You don't need to spend a whole lot of time doing that. It's not about crumbs. It's not about baking soda. Days of Unleavened Bread are not about matzos, even if they are chocolate-covered matzos, which still have yet to take part in. Exodus 13, verses 6 and 7 do tell us that for seven days you shall eat Unleavened Bread. And indeed, we begin today to eat Unleavened Bread.

And as we put that Unleavened Bread into our mouth, in whatever form it may be, something that you make yourself, a homemade concoction, ladies, or the kind of dry matzos that we buy and have to slather with a little bit of butter or a smart balance, however old we are, to make them palatable at times, when we put that bread in our mouth each day, it's important that we think about really the power of Christ's life in us. A sinless, perfect life, symbolized only by that Unleavened Bread without any leavening agent in it that puffs it up.

And we put that in, we think about that. And it's a symbol. It's an important symbol. It's an important matter for us to do as God tells us to do that. But that's what we should focus on, the life of Christ in us and the resurrected Jesus Christ. We're here today on this first day, and we'll observe this period, to observe the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We do observe that.

That is the central hope of a Christian. Without the resurrection, Paul said, we are most men, most miserable. And understanding that, believing that, and having faith in that resurrection, that he walked out of that tomb, is a central tenet of our faith. Without it, there is nothing else to go on and do.

That's what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul talks about the fact that the substance is Christ. The substance is Christ in Colossians 2.16. That is what is at the center of our faith, of our observance, of these days, these holy days. These define our spiritual life for all eternity. I'd like to take a moment to walk us through a few examples from the Bible of people who had a defining moment, made a decision that impacted their life. And in doing so, help us to understand that we can find a key to knowing that moment as well in our life, and knowing when we come to it, or being able to define it at some point in our life.

We're going to look at three examples at this point. We're going to look at Ruth, Josiah, and the Apostle Paul. Let's start by turning back to the book of Ruth, chapter 1. We should all know the story of Ruth, the Moabite woman who became a part of the lineage in the line of Jesus Christ. She was married to an Israelite whose family had migrated into the land of Moab because of a famine. And all the men in the family died. The father and two sons died leaving the mother and two widows, wives of the two sons, destitute in one sense.

Naomi, being the mother, then decided to go back to her home, back to Bethlehem. They came out of the land of Bethlehem and Judah. And she made the decision that she was going to return home. And again, we're not going to go through the whole story here, but she says, you know, Naomi said, look, I'm not going to have any more sons, and so you girls need to get on with your life, and don't wait around for me.

I'm going back to my kin, as she may have said. And in verse 14 of Ruth chapter 1, they lifted up their voices and they wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, one of the daughters-in-law, and she left. She stayed in Moab. But Ruth clung to her. And she said, look, your sister-in-law, Naomi said, has gone back to your people, to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law.

In other words, stay here. You have a better hope for a future there. But, verse 16, Ruth said these immortal words, and treat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you. For wherever you go, I will go. And wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. And where you die, I will die. And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death, parts you and me. These two verses, 16 and 17, define a life. They define a life for Ruth. Because, as you know in the rest of the story, she did go back to Bethlehem. She did eventually marry Boaz. And she figures in the line of Jesus Christ. It's a beautiful story. Actually, the very moment of this verses 16 and 17 are about right now, the early spring of the year. It's a passover to Pentecost story. Largely at Pentecost, that is the book of Ruth read and studied because of the early harvest that was taking place. So, they would have been, about this time of year, making that decision to go back. Naomi would have, as it turns out, she and Ruth were the ones that went back. But this was where Ruth had her defining moment. Ruth already had, I'm sure she had character, from what we subsequently know about her. No doubt she had beauty. But, you know, none of this would have ever found their way into God's service had she not made the decision on the road on this day to stay with Naomi and to follow her and her God. We would have never known about Ruth. And none of her qualities, none of her character would have ever been known or been employed in any way in the ultimate service of God had she not on that morning made that decision. That I am not going to stay in Moab. I am going to go with you and I will follow you wherever you go and your God will be my God. That was her defining moment and that defined the rest of her life. It was an extraordinary decision. Ruth, you see, was a nobody. Now, I use that in quotations. She had no standing. She was a woman in a man's world. And a widow in the ancient world was in a very precarious situation. There wasn't a large social net to capture a widow in that world at that time. They were at the mercy of their family or anyone else that might have pity upon them in society. So Ruth was, she had no social standing. She was not a king. And she wasn't even the concubine of a king like Esther. We read the story of Esther and she was a courageous woman, made a major decision. But she was at least a concubine in the court of the king. Ruth was a nobody. Her decision was not made lightly by her. And because she made that decision, we know who Ruth was. And we can talk about her today and we see how far-reaching it was because she figures in the lineage of Jesus Christ. And that, in and of itself, is a remarkable part of the story.

A defining moment. Let's look at the second example. Let's turn over to 2 Chronicles 34.

2 Chronicles 34. The story of Josiah, a king and Judah. Verse 1 tells us that he was eight years old when he became king.

And he reigned for 31 years. He came to a tragic death in battle. But it tells us that he walked to the site in the ways of his father David and started out as a righteous king. First few verses here tell us that he went through the land after he gained his maturity after eight years and he started knocking down all the idle idols and the places of worship and the high places and the carved images and the old images and started to purge the land of all of those and did quite a remarkable thing in itself.

But the subtext of the story here is that there was not a complete renewal, revival, or purging within the land of Judah. He did some major things, but there were still some problems and the faith, the way of life of the nation had not yet returned up to the level that it should. Because you go through the story and you find that in the 18th year of his reign, in verse 8, after he purged the land of all these idols, he began to repair the house of the Lord.

So it took a few more years for his reformed efforts to get finally focused upon the very temple itself in Jerusalem and cleaning it up. Things had been in disarray, there had been no sacrifices, the holy days, the worship services were not fully intact there. There was a great deal of confusion. And the story goes, as they were clearing out the temple, they found a scroll of the law. And they brought it to him, brought it to the king, and it was read to him down in verse 19 that it happened when the king heard the words of the law, that he tore his clothes.

A symbol, actually tearing his clothes in a sense of probably going through just an emotional reaction. And what he heard with tears, and realizing that, and really the scriptures are understanding what was being read to him, it was the law of Deuteronomy. That part of the law was the book of Deuteronomy that was being read to him.

And the section where God had told the blessings and cursings, blessings for obedience and cursings for disobedience. And it came crashing in on Josiah that his reforms had not gone far enough, that there needed to be a reinstitution of the holy days. And he goes on in the story of Josiah, and they kept a passover, a unique passover, not like any that had been held for a long, long time in the land. And so his reforms began with the passover, an unleavened bread in the spring holy days.

But this was a major event, and it took a number of years for it to take place. He was already king. He had already begun to do certain things to reform the land and to clean up some of the administration and the religious worship and all. But it had not taken its fullest extent. It would be kind of like you and I, you know, trying to, after some period of neglect of God's way of life, we begin to clean up our life by keeping some part of the law being faithful, let's say, with tithing.

You know, cleaning up our language, cleaning up our actions and our character in terms of morality, perhaps, or our ethics with our lying. But not paying meticulous attention to every point of the law. And, you know, cleaning ourselves up to a certain point. But then, as it does with so many people, it takes God's direct intervention and a calling from God to reveal about, let's say, the Sabbath, the fourth commandment. And then with that, the Holy Days. A lot of people can clean up their life and get right with God without ever touching the fourth commandment.

And it seems like, as that is, and coming to the fullness of understanding of God and worshiping God, that certainly does take God's intervention and His calling. Well, in a sense, that's what we could say happened here with Josiah when they finally got around to really looking carefully at the law, and he realized that his reforms had not gone far enough. And so, he began to institute those reforms. And down in verse 27, God said something to him. He says, "'Because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against His inhabitants, and you humbled yourself before Me, and you tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you.'" It's almost as if God hadn't fully turned His face upon the land and the king, even with the reforms that they had made.

He was a good man and a good king up to a degree, but the fullness of the revelation hadn't impacted and taken place yet with Josiah. "'Until the law was read to him, and he saw that they needed to begin keeping the holy days.'" And he restores the worship of God in chapter 35, says they kept a pass over to the Lord in Jerusalem on the 14th day, and the story goes on from there. Josiah had been king already for 18 years before he got to this point, but this is the moment that defined his reign, when the law was read to him.

That was his defining moment. That's what we remember about Josiah.

That's what makes his story. That's what God remembered and caused to be put into the word here. It centers on holy time, centers on the law, if you will, and was his defining moment. Sometimes we have to come, even after being a good person or working to be a good person, it's not enough.

And we have to react when the information is put before us, and we have a decision to make. Josiah had a decision. He made it, and it defined the rest of his life, the rest of his reign. That was his defining moment. Let's look at the Apostle Paul. Turn over to Acts 9.

You probably know where we're going to with his life and his story. The Apostle Paul was a Pharisee, a very learned Pharisee, a member of that quasi-political religious grouping in Israel, and Jude at the time. But he was a persecutor of the faithful, of the church. Verse 1 tells us, he was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.

And he went to the high priest, and he secured warrants for their arrest, and was going on to Damascus to pull him out of the synagogues and arrest him. He, remember, was the one holding the cloak of those who stoned Stephen.

So, Paul's pre-conversion life was that of a man who was very, very zealous, as he later said, and meticulous in his adherence to certainly the code and the law and the traditions of the Pharisees and everything. And he knew that the letter and the legalistic approach had it all down, and he was very zealous. And I have to think that because of that, as most people are in those categories, he was also full of pride in what he was, who he was, to the point where he would then actively persecute someone.

The people that I have noticed, known over the years, who get to the point where they will turn upon the people of God, tend to have a lot of pride. They can't see it.

And so, Paul was on the road to Damascus to carry out further interrogations and inquisitorial acts, and here he was struck down, as we are told, in verse 3, And he said, The Lord said, And so he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what do you want me to do? And the Lord said to him, L'Rise, and go into the city, and you'll be told what you must do. And so, Saul arose in verse 8, But they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. And he was for three days without sight, neither ate nor drank.

Blind for three days, as a result of this experience. And we get from this, the term, if you ever hear anybody say, so-and-so had a Damascus road experience, well, they've had a conversion experience, or they've had a dramatic turnaround in their life, through whatever action, whatever's brought it about, if you ever hear that come about.

And the rest of the story we know about Paul.

This moment was a defining moment for Paul.

It turned him around, from a persecutor, where he was actually engaged in not just charging the members with whatever crime, but wanting to see them killed.

And glorying and reveling in that.

That's a mindset that's hard to imagine at times, unless you fully can appreciate the depths to which human pride will take one.

And as you look at Paul's story here, you might think, well, you know, what's so defining about this? He was the Apostle Paul. Well, no, he wasn't at this moment.

He was a Pharisee at this moment.

A prideful Pharisee.

A very intelligent man.

A very zealous man.

Probably one that had quite a large prominent future ahead of him had he remained a Pharisee.

And he had this experience, and he could have gone either way.

It was not foreknown that he would react the way he did, and humble himself, and become the man that he was.

After all, again, keep in mind what happened with Pharaoh at the time of Moses, the excess of Israel from Egypt.

Pharaoh solved direct intervention by God as well multiple times, and his heart was hardened every time.

Every time. Even to the death of the firstborn, his own.

And he had a momentary humility, but by morning that was gone, and he gathered up the chariots and his armies and pursued the Israelites.

So Pharaoh didn't.

There's a scripture in Revelation 9 that talks about the time during the tribulation, heavenly signs and events that are taking place in the world, and it says that men will hide and the times will be so bad, but they will curse God.

So there will be a time of events in the future when world events and tribulation will be such, causing such suffering and obvious divine intervention, and yet men will not yet yield to God.

So again, don't just assume that it was a foregone conclusion that Paul would belly up and repent. But he did, didn't he? But he didn't have to. That's the point. He didn't have to. And he did, and that became a defining moment for the Apostle Paul.

Pride could have kept him from repentance, but it didn't. So that's an Apostle. We talked about a king, Josiah. And then we talked about a woman without any social standing, a widow who would have been nameless, Ruth. There are many other individuals we could look at in the Scriptures. But what about us? As I've talked thus far this morning, have we had, and can we identify, defining moments in our own life? As I said earlier, I've had a few in my early life, and as I was thinking about this sermon, perhaps the most significant, there was one that stood out, and I've had to think and realize, this was a defining moment in my life. I didn't know it at the time. But it came to a decision that I had to make when I was, I guess I was about 18, 19 years old. I had not yet left home. I had graduated from high school. And I had to come to a decision and finally decide to put myself fully into God's way of life. Or not.

You see, and I know I've mentioned this before, but I was a person, I was a teenager who lived two lives. One in the church and one outside the church. I had a double life. I had my school life and I had my church life. And I didn't want the two to mix.

I knew the church was true. I've been attending since age 12. And I believed what I had heard and I believed it to be the truth. But I had the pull of my friends and my social life in school. And it was always a juggling act for me. And it came down to one event after I graduated from high school. And I was not going off to Ambassador College right out of high school. I had enrolled in the local university and was working and still living at home at that time. And I think it was probably early summer of that year. This would have been 1970.

And one of my parts of my life that I juggled around was dating girls that weren't part of the church. I dated girls that were part of the church, too, but I dated others that were not. And I had come to a point where I had a date arranged on a Saturday night with a girl who was not in the church. A very nice girl. Her family, her dad was partners in an insurance agency where my dad bought all of his insurance for the home and for his work.

Very nice girl. A couple of years, maybe a year or two younger than me. And it was just an innocent enough date, but it came at a point after a very serious period of introspection for me. And I made the date and then I began to think about it. And I realized a day or two later that I was at a crossroads. If I continued, in my way of thinking, I remember that week, if I continued to straddle the fence, I just knew that I would eventually be overwhelmed on the church side of my life. The church side would have been relegated to a secondary status.

One that I did, if at all, when it was only convenient to me. And I realized that in time I would likely not even be a part of the church.

You come to certain times where you have to really be honest with yourself. And that was the time. So I remember one night, after getting home from work, sitting just thinking about it, I called up the girl, her name was Susan, and I broke the date. I said, I just can't make it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I didn't give her a reason. Very short. I hung up the phone. Never talked to her again in my life. I don't know whatever happened to her. I'm sure she went on to grow fat and have fat kids and have a good life. I certainly hope she did. I don't know whatever happened. She was a very nice girl. That was it.

I made my decision to obey God and do it with all that I had, and put both feet in the church, and move forward. Off the beach, if you will, with whatever he had in mind for me. I never dated another girl outside of the church. At that point, I got serious about school and eventually went off to Ambassador College over a year later. But that, as Robert Frost says in his immortal poem, Two Roads Diverged in a Wood, that made all the difference. That was the decision. I realized that was a defining moment in my life.

Because from that decision flowed everything else. My baptism, my calling to the ministry, and my marriage to Debbie. Now, those were all big decisions, too. For some, that may be your defining decision. But as I look back on it, I realize that if I had not made a decision at that point in time on that issue, none of the others likely would have happened. Knowing me, knowing the polls, being honest with that cold, hard reality as it struck me at that particular time in the early summer of 1970.

Everything else flowed from that decision, for me, as I look back. That was my defining moment. Now, there were no visions. There was no dramatic presentation of the book of the law before me. There was no agony of physical suffering. It was just a personal inner struggle in the midst of an otherwise normal life.

A young man with all that he needed and living a good middle-class Midwestern life. Much like the manner in which God often works with those of us living common everyday lives. Mine was more like, if you will, a Ruth experience, where a woman made a decision on a dusty road in what is now modern Jordan on an early spring day when a couple of women would feel like walking down the hills and across the river to the small town of Bethlehem in Judah.

No one knew God's decision but Ruth. Would it have been so far-reaching? I didn't know that day that my decision would impact the rest of my life the way it did, but as I look back now 40 years later, I understand that it did. And I understand it clearly. I understand that had I not decided to end what to me was a divided, double-minded life, and I was double-minded. I was double-minded.

People who knew me in school would have not known anything about my church life. I had a double-minded life, and I was double-minded. But had I not made that decision, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be standing here today. Now, somebody else would be standing here today, but it wouldn't be me. And furthermore, Debbie wouldn't be here. Now, she'd be, but she wouldn't be here if you get what I mean. Nor would my son Ryan and his children Liam and Kamlin, nor would they even be.

Had I not made that decision that day, they wouldn't even exist. Stephanie, my daughter-in-law, she would be, but she wouldn't be here or living in Indianapolis. Had I not made that decision. Do you understand how far-reaching some decisions can be? How life can be summed up in a defining moment, or a few defining moments. We come in life to these moments when God leads us to see the future, our future. And in a moment of crystal clarity, we see we're at a crossroads.

Yet God gives us the ability sometimes to see around the corner, over the hill, beyond the horizon, to see that what is in front of us right now will decide our future. And these days of beloved bread give us the tools for seizing that opportunity. How do you know your defining moment? You know, those of us who are older have had ours.

We've had our moments in one sense, and they've defined a life. Those of you that are younger are yet perhaps to have yours. And it could be a calling, and it could be marriage. But how will you know, and what will you do with it when it comes to you?

Let's turn back to the book of Colossians. Colossians has a very stirring message for us this time of the year, as we begin the days of beloved bread.

Colossians puts the focus on Jesus Christ. Puts the focus on faith. Very important letter. In verse 3 of chapter 1, Paul writes, We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of your love for all the saints. Then down to verse 11, he says, Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and long suffering with joy. I'm going to read this section here from the Phillips translation. I've rediscovered the Phillips translation this year. I used it on Passover the other night. It's a little bit more modern English. And in verse 11, Phillips puts it this way, As you live this new life, we pray that you will be strengthened from God's boundless resources, so that you will find yourselves able to pass through an experience and endure it with joy. You will even be able to thank God in the midst of pain and distress because you're privileged to share the lot of those who are living in the light. For we must never forget that He rescued us from the power of darkness and reestablished us in the kingdom of His beloved Son. For it is by His Son alone that we have been redeemed and have had our sins forgiven. And so Paul puts us right here in the middle of the days of an oven bread, in this experience of forgiveness through Christ and through His Son. The importance of that, the preeminence, and how we are reconciled to Christ. And down in verse 23, Paul goes on, and I'll read again from the Phillips, he says, I myself have been made a minister of the same gospel, and though it is true at this moment that I am suffering on behalf of you who have heard the gospel, yet I am far from sorry about it. Indeed, I am glad because it gives me a chance to complete in my own suffering something of the untold pains which Christ suffers on behalf of His body, the Church. For I am a minister of the Church by divine commission, a commission granted to me for your benefit and for the special purpose. So Paul understood his calling, his purpose, to proclaim the gospel, and to bring people to the hope of the kingdom and to hope of that relationship with Jesus Christ. And his desire was so strong for the people that nothing would hinder them from achieving that end.

Down in chapter 2 and verse 8, he says, Be careful that nobody spoils your faith through intellectualism for high-sounding nonsense. Such stuff is at best founded on men's ideas of the nature of the world and disregards Christ. In your New King James it says, Don't be cheated through philosophy and empty deceit according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world. Intellectualism being cheated out of your faith by high-sounding nonsense. In the future, I think the next great test that many will have to go through in the church is an attack upon faith. And these very things here that Paul warns us against. Intellectualism, emptiness, deceit, philosophy, and ideas that turn one away from the reality of Jesus Christ, his death and his resurrection. Even as to who Christ was as the divine Son of God. There's a whole field of study on this, the apologetics, and the idea of understanding the Word of God, believing it as the Word of God, and believing in God himself, certainly the divinity of Jesus Christ. Paul was attacking the problem that was already being addressed, being a part of the church, and undermining people's faith here. We live in a modern world that does not want to acknowledge God. And where there are continual attacks upon the Bible, its truth, and whether or not it indeed is a divine word and book by which one can base their faith and their life, and everything within it. Whether Christ was the divine Son of God, or whether God even exists, or whether the Bible itself is true. I think that what we will have to, the next great test will be for the people of God, will be more along those lines than anything else. Sometimes you try to figure out where's Satan going to strike next.

And from what I see in Scripture, and from what I see in our culture and in our world today, this is what I see. For us to be aware of, and to think about, and to make sure that our faith is strong in those matters that are important. And as we are here at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Days of Unleavened Bread, and again commemorating the Passover service, we focus our mind upon Jesus Christ, God the Father. That God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever would believe on Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. And we commemorate the suffering and the death of Christ, and we keep the Days of Unleavened Bread, to picture the resurrected Christ living within us, and the power that comes from that.

And that is at the heart and core of our worship and of our faith. And we will either be taken to the height of that understanding in our faith and in our relationship with God, or we will not stand beyond this time of crisis, or any future crisis that will come.

It's important that every member of the Church of God understand that. That it is our relationship with God and His Son Jesus Christ that we'd better get right and understand it, and be anchored there, that that is the most important relationship. That is the most meaningful of relationships.

And that's the one that will allow us to stand an even greater time of crisis and challenge to faith that will come upon the people of God.

Down in verse 16 of chapter 2, Paul even shows to the people here that, look, don't worry about what people are going to criticize you on regarding food or drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon, or Sabbaths, which he says are a shadow of things to come.

The Sabbath and the Holy Days and every aspect of faith and truth point to that which is to come. He says the substance is of Christ. The most important thing is that of Jesus Christ. They all point to Him. Christ said He was the Lord of the Sabbath. We observe the Sabbath for many reasons, because it is holy time, because God commands us, but because that is where we, excuse me, go out and we, in a sense, meet Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath. And He does His work within us at that time.

We observe the Holy Days because they picture to us what is going to come through Christ as the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. And every one of them point us to Christ. The substance is Christ. That's what we focus on. That's what's most important. And He goes on and says, don't let anyone cheat you out of that. Don't let anyone take that away from you. There is one example of a defining moment that trumps all that we have studied thus far.

And it's that of Jesus Christ Himself. Turn quickly back to Matthew 26. Matthew 26. As Christ was being tried before His death, He came to a moment when He could have walked away from it all. Matthew 26 and verse 64. This is when He was before the high priest.

And they took Him some time to find witnesses, and two of them, verse 60, that would come forward. And they were false witnesses, but they had to get two stories to line up. Two lies to line up. Hard to get lies to line up. You ever notice that? Hard to get lies to line up. People can tell lies all they want. But lies always are different. And it took them a while to get two lies to line up.

But they were false. And so they probably knew that, hey, you know, this might not hold. Even among their own court and by their own laws. And so the high priest said to him, do you answer, in verse 62, what these men testify against you, is it true? And he kept silent, verse 63.

And the high priest answered and said, I put you under oath by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. This was Christ's defining moment. If he had been a charlatan, as some have tried to say that he was, or even just a good rabbi that got a lot of attention drawn to himself, but he wasn't the Son of God, and with what was in front of him, this could have been the moment for him to say, you know what?

Well, it's been a nice party, but I'm out of here. And he could have said, well, you know, I'm not. And the whole court would have dissolved, mistrial. And maybe he could have slunked out of Jerusalem unnoticed. Maybe he could have found his way back to Nazareth. Maybe he reemerged in a carpentry job somewhere down the road, all of it over.

If that's what he had been. But it wasn't what he was. What he was was the Son of God. But this was his moment. And so he said in verse 64, it is as you said. And it was from this moment that everything rolled. They had their verdict. They had their words to convict him. He went to Pilate, discouraged, and killed. From this moment, you can make the case that had he said no, and it trembled and grown weak, we wouldn't be reading about this.

But that was not the case. This was Christ's defining moment. It sealed it. He said yes, and everything went forward. And Christ's sacrifice, his defining moment, is not just for us. It's for the entire world. And you and I have been put here with a love for this world that desperately needs the truth. The very knowledge that we have. Because of that, we have the opportunity to fulfill his own prayer in John 17, when he prayed for those who would believe in me through their word.

In verse 20, we read the other night in Passover service. And we have to put it out there. We have to put that same message out there, as to who he was, what he is, and what he will be as the coming king to bring that kingdom to this earth. That is the gospel. That is the full gospel of Christ and the kingdom of God. And that is what we do. And we have to put it out there. So it is time for God's power, the Holy Spirit, to define in us who we are, the people of God. Christ is the substance, and it is Christ in us that is the hope of our glory. So as we keep the days of unleavened bread, let's understand how this moment really does define us collectively, and all of God's people, for our work, for our calling, for all eternity. And let's move forward. Let's move off the beach. And that will make all the difference.